Behind The Mic With Joe Mathieu: Just Saying ‘No’ To The Tax Man

BOSTON (CBS) – We’ve all thought about it – telling the Tax Man to pound sand – but some people actually do it.

The IRS says it flags about 30,000 people each year for filing what it calls frivolous returns, in which people use various means of protesting the American tax code.

Many of these people believe taxes are a government scam or somehow unconstitutional.

These may not be mainstream views. But the IRS says it hears so many bizarre excuses that it actually publishes a list of the ones it will not accept.

That list is 59 pages long.

The agency has even set up a special department to handle these cases, even though they make up a very small fraction of all tax payers.

Some people get very creative and Politico Pro lists a number of their excuses, like the one that claims taxing people violates the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery. Or the one that points to the First Amendment allowing them to not pay taxes for religious reasons.

But while some of these are funny, the IRS is not laughing. That special department forwards cases to the authorities and they do follow up.

First they send a letter giving you 30 days to fix the return or face a $5,000 fine.

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Joe Mathieu has returned to his professional home town and assumed the morning radio news anchor duties at the top-rated, award-winning WBZ NewsRadio 1030 (M-F, 5-10AM) with the morning team of Deb Lawlor and Ad...